The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1887-08-12

pare for the time of want. The difficulty
is, when men think of their death they
are afraid to think Of II only In connec.
ton with their spiritual welfare. and not
of the devastation IN the household which
will come because of their emigration
from it. II is meanly selfish for you to
be so absorbed in the heaven to which
you are going that you forget what Is ia
become of your wife and children after
you are dead. You can go out OF this
world without leaving dollar and yet die
happy if you could not provide for them;
you can trust them in the hands of the God
who owns all the harvests, and the herds,
and the flocks; but If you could pay the
premiums on a policy and neglect them,
it is mean thing for you to go up to
heaven while they go into the poor
house. You, at death, move into man
sion, river front, and they move into two
rooms on the fourth story of tenement
house in back street. When they are
out at the elbows and knees the thought
of your splendid robe in heaven will not
keep them warm. The minister may
preach splendid sermon over your re-
mains, and the quartette may sing like
four angels in the organ loft, but your
death will be n swindle. You had the
means to provide for the comfort Of your
household when you left it, and you
wickedly neglected it. "Oh," says some
one, II have more faith than you; be-
lieve when l 60 out of this world the
Lord will provide for them" Go to
Blackwell's Island, go through all the
poor houses of the country, and I
will show you how often God pro-
vides for the neglected children
of neglectful parents. That is, he pro-
vides for them through public charity.
As for myself, would rather have the
Lord provide for my family in a private
home, and through my own industry,
and paternal and conjugal faithfulness.
But, says some man: II mean in the
next ten or twenty years to make great
fortune, and SO l shall leave my family
when go out of this world very COM
Portable" How do you know you are
going to live ten or twenty years? If we
could look up the highway of the future
we would see it crossed by pneumonias,
and pleurisies, and consumptions, and
colliding rail trains, and runaway horses,
and breaking bridges and funeral process
sions. Are you so certain you are going
to live ten or twenty years you can war
rant your household any comfort after
you 60 away from them? Beside that,
the vast majority of men die poor. Two
only out Of 100 succeed in business.
Are you very certain you are
going to be one of the two? Rich
one day, poor the next. A man in New
York got $2,000,00O, and the money
t.-'>od Ia" h"oin and he died in the
lunatic asylum. All his property was
left with the business firm, and they
swamped it; and then the family of the
insane man were left without dollar.
In eighteen months the prosperity, the
insanity, the insolvency, and the COM
plete domestic ruin. Beside that, there
are men who die solvent, who are insolv-
ent before they get under the ground, or
before their estate is settled UP. How
soon the auctioneer's mallet can knock
the life out of an estate. A man thinks
the property is worth $4,000; under
forced sale it brings $1,000. The business
man takes advantage of the crisis and he
the widow Of his deceased part
ner to sell out to him at a ruinous
price, or lose all. The stock was sup
posed to be very valuable, but it has
been so "watered" that when the execu-
tor tries to sell it he is laughed out of
Wall street, or the administrator is Or
dered by the surrogate to wind up the
whole affair. The estate was supposed
at the mans death to be worth 100000;
but after the Indebtedness had been met,
and the bills of the doctor, and the under
taker. and the tombstone cutter have been
paid, there is nothing left. That means
the children are to come home from school
and go to work. That means the COM
plete hardship of the wife, turned out
with nothing but needle to fight the
great battle Of the world. Tear down the
ambrequins, close the piano, rip up the
Administer, sell out the wardrobe, and
ct the mother take child in each hand
md trudge out into the desert of the
world. A life insurance would have
,indered all that.
But says some one: 81 am a man of
mall means and can't afford to pay
he premium. That is sometimes a
awful and a genuine excuse, and there
s no answer to it; but in nine cases out
# ten when man says that, he smokes
lp in cigars, and drinks down in wine,
md expends in luxuries enough money
o have paid the premium on life insu-
ance policy which would have kept his
amily from beggary when he is dead.
\ man ought to put himself down on the
trictest economy until he can meet this
christian necessity. You have no right
o the luxuries of life until you have
made such provision. I admire what
vas said by DR.. Guthrie, the great Scot
ish preacher. A few years before his
eath he stood in a public meeting and
declared: "When I came to Edinburgh
he people sometimes laughed at my blue
tockings, and at my cotton umbrella,
nd they said looked like common
bowman, and they derided me be-
ause lived in house for which paid
35 rent year, and oftentimes I walked
7hen would have been very glad to
ave cab; but, gentlemen, I did all
nat because wanted to pay the pre-
hum on a life insurance that would
eep my family comfortable if I should